Breathe Into Me
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: Uncomfortably numb, an ache pulsing beneath his mask, he remembers her words like vines intruding in on his space. Jin, Jun -centric


**Just tuning up my writing. Reviews and faves aren't necessary. Concrit would be nice though.**

**Disclaimer:**** You can blame Namco for the crappy endings, not me.**

* * *

"_Breathe deeply, Jin. Keep your mind focused and your movements formless."_

* * *

Violence was usually subjective. It should feel worse when he uses his hands to destroy and tear apart on a sudden whim. The look on her face should compel him to resist such demonic urges. By then, it's too late. The dandelions stand beheaded and in shock.

He _should _feel sorrier.

She shakes her head. There's a sad sort of bemusement in her eyes which flickers like candlelight before giving way to steeled resolve.

The dirt must come off, whether he liked it or not.

She scrubs him clean until even the dirt from beneath his fingernails is squeezed out. Despite the child's protests, she persists with cloth and soap in hand, scrubbing and wiping, wiping and scrubbing, the skin on her fingers and palms as red as his angrily flushed shoulders. In due time though, he'd be just as filthy again from some rough game invented solely for himself. The boy had too much time and energy than was good for him.

"Kaa-_san_…" he whined as soon as she sat him down, clean and ready for meditation. "_Why _do we have to _this_?"

"To clear the mind and cleanse our souls of impurities." Just like her father had said, and his father before him.

"I wanna go _play_."

"After we're done."

She would preside over a silence impregnated with his surly glares and ill-tempered snorts. Thirty minutes a day before dinner where the world would slow down gradually until it stood stock-still. The whispers emanating from the dark corners of their four walls would hush in reverence and she would avoid gazing into her son's restless eyes.

"Breathe with me, Jin."

It would get easier when he was older, she told herself.

* * *

"_If it gets hard, just stop for a while and let it all out. Breathe out, Jin."_

* * *

He found it easier to love her in the mornings. The light was more forgiving on her face. With each inch he'd sprouted over each year, another line had been scrawled into the corners of her eyes. In time, he supposed, she would find it harder to love him too. His shoulders were broadening and his voice was beginning to startle her. Someday ahead, he would be strong enough to take her down with one swipe of his fist.

There were two paths beginning from their house. One led south, across the fields and into the town where he went to school and she did the grocery shopping. The other led north, into the forest and further beyond to the river he caught small fish from. When he was but a tiny infant, she would carry him in her arms to watch the sun glint from the running waters. When he'd started on his first steps, she would lead him by the hand. As he grew older, he would hover by her side as she picked berries from the bushes dotting the sides of the walkway. A time came when he would wander here alone to get away from her.

When she closed her eyes thirty minutes before dinner, she could hear him breathe in a familiar throaty baritone…

All of a sudden, he was fifteen.

"I have something to tell you."

Later that night, he doesn't lie down and dream. In a span of fifteen years told over half an hour, the previous nights' whispers link together like the metal rings of a chain. He doesn't know how but he knows why he finds his feet taking him to the river where he unleashes the venom on a shadow.

He calls it 'Kazuya' and pretends that it bleeds when he lands a hit.

* * *

"_No matter what happens, don't forget to live. Breathe for me, Jin."_

* * *

As soon as he woke up, he remembered.

The air stank of burnt wood. She was nowhere to be found.

Heihachi didn't waste any time on trivialities like inhaling well. As soon as the boy at the gate uttered his mother's final instructions to him, he began marking down his plot, making sure that the stage was set for the eventual conclusion. His grandson may call himself 'Kazama' but the effects of the curing blood of the clan had yet to reveal themselves.

He pushed himself hard. So much so that his muscles throbbed as if they were crawling with hissing vipers. He could barely recall the last time he'd gazed at the sun let alone anything of the real outside world. Anyone who barely knew him assumed that the new-found Mishima scion begetted none of his father's sins. Well-mannered, soft-spoken, sloe-eyed and handsome, he fooled all of them well. Then again, they never saw him as he gasped for air beneath the icy font of water in the shower. In the city, nothing is pure, not even the oxygen.

When betrayal strikes, he moves on better than he expects.

Still, he is well aware of who he is.

That would be a problem for the future.

* * *

"_Keep on breathing, wherever life takes you."_

* * *

"It is done. Operation successful. Sir."

Lars always added the last suffix as an afterthought. Never mind him, Jin had barely heard a word uttered.

Even as he surveyed his armies of brainwashed young cadets, he felt the scent of the forest seeping into the wind scattering the snowflakes around them. Despite his misgivings, it cleansed him slightly. Discomfited, he turned on his heel and barks an order at an awaiting officer. They had a war to win, make-believe or not.

In his private quarters, he broods awake and sober.

If time-travel was indeed possible, what would he say to the boy he had been seven years away from today? Get a hold of yourself and stop sobbing into your collar? Harsh, no better than his grandfather.

His blood stirred.

The very thing he had feared was awakening.

As he trudged out to the temple, he noticed the buds creeping up in defiance from the cracks in the barren ground. He could tear them up if he liked but they'd always return to mock him in the end. For every tree that collapsed into ashes, another would sprout from its remains. The intervals between the eruptions of her words were growing shorter. Like the snow, they'd fall upon him and sting him with their purity.

Jin gazed into the abyss.

"Breathe into me, mother."


End file.
